I pull her face gently toward mine and kiss her softly on the lips.
“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” I smile. “I can totally teach you how to manage a small farm with a few animals and a large vegetable garden.”
“That would be perfect!” she beams.
We talk for a bit more and brainstorm our good ideas until we are so tired that our sleepiness eventually wins out over our excitement and we fall asleep together on the couch, happy to get started on our new plans.
3
Ava
The next day feelsnormal, and it has been a while since things felt normal. Trevor assured me that at some point Max would give up or slip up and get caught, but that in the meantime, we have to continue living our lives and not let him win. So, I decide this morning to go into the quaint downtown Fairport area to peek at some of the wedding dresses.
We don’t even have a date set yet, but since it’s already mid-fall, and we want to get things underway with our new business venture before the busy holiday season, and prep the garden during the dormant season, Trevor and I are tentatively planning to get married in the spring.
He went back to his previous farm this morning to check on things, and since there’s really nothing for me to get started on here yet, I decided that doing some window shopping downtown would be a good idea. It would, at the very least, help keep my mind off of Max. And it was a highly public area so it wasn’t like he could just come up and try to kidnap me in plain daylight.
When I get there, downtown Fairport is already bustling with people. It never ceases to amaze me how people somehow start thinking about holiday shopping when it has just barely passed Halloween. I don’t think I will ever have my lifethattogether. I don’t think I can even pretend to have myself that put together at any given time. But at least I am checking out wedding dresses in advance.
Downtown Fairport is filled with historic three-story buildings that are the home to quirky little shops of all kinds. In particular, there is a wedding dress shop in one of the windows that I remember peeking into several times as a child. I can remember walking past the shop with my mother on our way to someplace else and stopping to gape in awe at the fairytale-worthy wedding gowns displayed in the window. I’d never actually beeninsidethe store, and so I feel myself getting as giddy as a child when I pull open the door.
Whoever is in charge of their marketing is a genius. Because when I go inside the space, it feels every bit like a fairytale dream to me. The entire little shop is decorated with gowns, and glittering tiaras, and veils that look as if they belong on princesses at royal wedding ceremonies. I am quite sure that I can’t afford a single thing in this shop—especially not now without my job. But I want to try them on anyways.
“Can I help you start a fitting room?” the saleslady asks as soon as she sees me eyeing one of the dresses.
I can’t help but nod.
By the time the saleslady had helped me gather a selection of dresses to try on, I am knee-deep in tulle. I tell myself that I can’t get attached to any particular dress, not yet, and especially not here at this extremely pricey boutique. But I should have known that if I spottedthedress, that it would be too late for me to fall out of love with it. And—it happens. I find the most breathtaking dress; the dress of my childhood fantasies, and the dress that I simplymusthave for my wedding to Trevor. But a quick glimpse of the price tag shows me that there’s no way in hell I can afford the dress right now.
“Is there any chance that I can put this dress on hold or on layaway or something?” I ask hopefully.
The woman smiles at me and nods. At least she’s nice and not uppity like some of them are. I’m sure she’s well aware how expensive these dresses are for the normal person. With a small deposit that is only about five percent of the cost of the dress, I am able to have her hold it for me. I thank her and try to figure out how I’m going to afford to pay for it as I walk out of the store and head back home. Now that I lost my high-paying job, and we decided not to sell my mother’s house, there just really isn’t any money to spare. And I’m not going to mention the dress to Trevor because I know he doesn’t have the money for it either, and I don’t want him killing himself trying to figure out how to pay for it. He’s never had much money to speak of, and unlike me, his tastes don’t require it. If we had sold my mother’s house, the proceeds from that sale would likely have been the most money Trevor had ever seen—except now we weren’t selling so there would be no money.
Aside from telling Trevor that I had a good time window shopping for dresses, I didn’t elaborate on the fact that I had actually tried any of the dresses on and that I had fallen in love with one of them. I didn’t see the point. Instead I just decided to focus on getting our new business venture up and running and I would come back to revisit the dress situation when I had some money saved up.
But after a couple of days, there’s a knock at the door and when I go to answer it, I am met by a delivery man holding a very large rectangular box.
“What’s this?” I ask. Obviously, he’s just the delivery guy and doesn’t know.
I sign for the box and he hands it over to me before he leaves. I have no clue who could possibly be sending me a package, especially not one of this size. I take it into the living room to open. For a second, I think about waiting until Trevor gets home from his farm again to open it. But then I find that I am just too curious to see what’s inside of it to wait. When I open the box and see the wedding dress that I had put the deposit on, I am beyond stunned. I wonder how Trevor knew about the dress and how he was able to get the money to pay for it.
4
Trevor
When I get back from checking on the farm, I am feeling good about the way things are going. I found new ownership today that I was able to hand the old farm over to. A young guy and his wife just starting out; both with a fondness for living green. Their faces lit up when they saw the animals, and I know that they’re going to take good care of the farm and all of its inhabitants. I do, however, bring a few things home with me. When Ava mentioned that she wanted to start our own little farm here at home, I decided to bring a few seedlings from the garden and one of the baby bunnies that had just turned about eight weeks old. I have a feeling that Ava will really like having her very first plants and animal to start her farm with. And when I walk through the front door with the little brown bunny in my hands, I can see that I am right.
When I first stepped inside the house, Ava had a look on her face like she wanted to tell me something, but as soon as she saw the bunny, she was so thrilled and distracted that whatever it was she wanted to tell me quickly melts away from her thoughts.
“Can we keep it?” she asks as she takes the soft little ball of fur from my hands.
“Of course,” I say. “She’s all yours. I brought a rabbit crate in my truck for you to keep her in.”
“A crate?” Ava asks in surprise as she grabs one of the fleece blankets off the back of the chairs and makes the bunny a soft and warm little nest in her arms.
I laugh and roll my eyes.
“Oh boy,” I say with an amused smile. “This is going to be the most spoiled bunny in the history of farm animals.”
